First Edition
69947
For Ruth and Gene Neilsen
CONTENTS
| 1. | A Slight Case of Conscience | [1] |
| 2. | A Time of Crisis | [21] |
| 3. | A President is Bamboozled | [32] |
| 4. | The Pirates of New Orleans | [44] |
| 5. | The Dark Years | [55] |
| 6. | Booze and Bribes | [69] |
| 7. | The Enforcers | [86] |
| 8. | Test Tube Detectives | [96] |
| 9. | The Informers | [107] |
| 10. | The Violent Border | [120] |
| 11. | A Dirty Business | [131] |
| 12. | The Case of the Crooked Diplomat | [147] |
| 13. | A Strange Little Room | [157] |
| 14. | The Diamond Smugglers | [166] |
| 15. | A Fool’s Dream | [184] |
| 16. | The Chiselers | [196] |
| 17. | The Innocents | [213] |
| 18. | The Stormy World of Art | [223] |
| 19. | Sex and the Censor | [234] |
| 20. | Of Toy Canaries and Pirates | [241] |
| 21. | The Middle Men | [255] |
| 22. | The Restless American | [265] |
1
A SLIGHT CASE OF CONSCIENCE
One of the most serious problems confronting the Customs Service in this century is the control of the illegal importation of narcotics. Some of the difficulties involved in handling dope smuggling can be seen when it is realized that these drugs are being sent from all over the world, by every means of international transportation. The comparatively small number of Customs agents rely on patience, diligence and intelligence, and they are doing a remarkable job. Since this problem is so important, and so typical of the job the Service does, we will begin with the story of one successful case.
On the night of May 17, 1955, seventeen-year-old Truls Arild Halvorsen sat in an office in the Customs House in Boston, Massachusetts, blinking back the unmanly tears that threatened to spill down his face. He kept trying to swallow the dry lump of fear in his throat, but it wouldn’t go away. And he had to concentrate hard to remember the answers to all the questions being asked of him by the men sitting about the room.
He was a tall, handsome youth. His blond hair was cropped in a crew cut. His eyes were as blue as the waters in the fjords of his native Norway which he had left for the first time only a little more than a year before. That was when he had shipped out as a seaman aboard the MS Fernhill.
He remembered the day he left home his father had said, “We are very proud of you, son.” His mother had wept as she clung to him. His friends had gathered to shake his hand and wish him good luck on his first voyage. He had felt grown up and proud and excited—ready to cope with anything the future might bring.